Re: Entity Ignorance

Terry wrote:
> Then I'll just point out that 4.3.8 allows the entity to be
> ignored even when it has been served to the client, e.g.,
> when it's bundled with the main document.  Few sane publishers
> will find entities attractive in XML.

I think it's not as bad as you fear.  Few successful clients will
be insane.  HTML makes display of the entire _document_ optional... :-)

The idea behind the decision was to allow lazy evaluation -- e.g. a
browser could show an "entity" box until you double click on it.
But this was done before we discussed hyperlinks at all.  If you have
links that support optional transclusion, you don't need this feature.

David suggests:
> "If the entity is an external text entity, and the processor is not
> attempting to validate the XML document, the processor may, but need not
> include the entity's content. [This is what we say currently, but we can
> add a new requirement: ]. If the application, either cannot retrieve the
> entity, or chooses not to do so, the application must indicate to the user
> that data is missing, and (if possible) offer the oppotunity to fetch the
> missing data."

I think this is fine.  Note that for an undefined entitiy (the original
example) you don't actually know whether it's external or not.  This
wording hence can only (I think) apply to defined but unreachable entities
where a DTD was given.

Lee

Received on Wednesday, 29 January 1997 22:14:16 UTC